Ginny's Secret Seventh Year
by gryffinclaw-witch
Summary: With Harry and Ron doing Auror work after the war, they have very little regular contact with Hermione and Ginny. For the boys, the school year they never returned for may be their most dramatic one. Mentions of HP/GW and DM/GW.


Outside it had been frigid and unpleasant, but not any worse than it was on Platform 9¾ now. The platform was crowded and smelled as distasteful as the typical train station, and Ron knew that just beyond it there were bored and busy Londoners carrying on obliviously with their afternoon.

Ron, himself, was growing bored. He and his mother had been here for over an hour, to the point where he had gotten tired of standing and took a seat on the platform because every bench and chair was occupied. Molly had looked at him with scorn and then scolded him, claiming he would catch some type of disease because who knows how many people's shoes walk over the very spot on a daily basis, and in response, Ron shed his heavyweight coat and placed it on the floor next to him.

He had eventually stood up again, but only because he was getting annoyed with how uncomfortable the metal ground was.

King's Cross Station was hardly decorated for the upcoming holiday, which was the very reason Ron and Molly had come to the platform: to take Ginny and Hermione back to the Burrow. Bill and Fleur were living at Shell Cottage; Ron hadn't seen them in a couple of months. Charlie was still in Romania, sending the family regular updates about his work and life, and today, Arthur and Percy were working at the Ministry for Magic. George was working at his joke shop (without Fred, which he was slowly adapting to), but Ron knew he would be home within the next hour. George might not even be living at the Burrow had Fred not died, because the two of them were considering buying a flat in Diagon Alley for a long time; then the Battle of Hogwarts happened, and George's plans changed.

Harry had opted to stay back at the Burrow, with promises that he intended to cook dinner while Ron and Molly were gone, but Ron mildly thought that it wasn't the entire reason. Harry and Ginny broke up less than a year ago, because Harry was fearful of her safety, but they ended it comfortably out of a desire to stay on good terms—and probably not only because they were residing within the same household.

But now, winter holiday was starting for the Hogwarts students, and that meant that the Weasleys would be welcoming Ginny and Hermione home for a while. They, along with Luna, all returned to complete their Hogwarts educations. Ron was thinking about it months ago, but decided that the Ministry's offer for him, to be an Auror with Harry, was too valuable to ignore. Besides, Ron wanted to be with Harry; maybe Hermione would have influenced his decision in the opposite direction if they had begun a relationship, but soon after the war ended, she confessed that she regretted kissing Ron because it was a spontaneous, poorly-thought-out act that she had done only out of desperation—because she had fully and honestly thought that they were about to be killed.

Ron was a little upset because of that, but respected Hermione too much to be angry at her. Now, they were simple friends and room-mates.

When the vague noise of a train was heard in the distance, other people on the platform took notice. They stood up from their seats and gathered their belongings together, hoping to leave the moment they recruited their child, in an effort to avoid the ensuing rush of magical families leaving the station. Ron looked up at his mother, who gestured for him to come closer; she was leaning towards the railway track along with some other impatient mothers, trying to catch sight of the train.

When it came to a lurching halt, Ron stiffened, mainly because he caught sight of a tall young man with a dark outfit and a light head of blond hair. At first Ron felt anxiety to be this near to Draco Malfoy, but then he felt an overwhelming sense of fury towards the git. Ron hated him at school, and now he still hated him. But, regardless . . . Draco couldn't have been here for a younger sibling, could he have? To Ron's knowledge, the Malfoys only had one son. Thinking of which, Ron glanced behind and around Draco, but was unable to find Lucius or even Narcissa. Had he come here alone?

The moment the doors of the train opened and Draco stepped on and out of sight—_why_ was he stepping on to the train?—Ron actually wondered if it wasn't Draco. But seeing him less than a minute before had felt utterly unmistakeable.

From his stance on the platform, Ron tried with determination to follow Draco's silhouette with his eyes, but it was a challenge because the windows of the train were fogged over from the cold. The countless other silhouettes moving past the row of windows only made it harder, and Ron looked down the way and he found Ginny first, from her vibrant red hair.

Immediately, based upon what he noticed next, Ron wanted to jump up the steps of the train and retrieve Ginny himself: but Draco was already there.

And, not easily (he had to squint), Ron saw through the windows of the train car that Draco kissed Ginny.

No, he had to be hallucinating. Maybe that red-headed girl wasn't actually Ginny. Maybe the man, as he recalled, wasn't actually Draco.

It was certainly Draco. A little while later, he got off of the train before Ginny did. Four times a minute Ron sent him an evil stare, but Draco never looked in his direction. Ron didn't care; he knew now what he had seen, and he knew that it wasn't as discreet as Draco had hoped, and it didn't matter whether or not they tried to prevent suspicion, because Ron saw it happen anyway.

Slightly later, her red hair reappeared in the window. By the time Ginny was closer to the door of the train, Hermione was directly behind her. A couple of times she turned her head as though she was trying to hold a conversation with Hermione, and when they stepped off, both girls were smiling from whatever they had been talking about.

Molly was ecstatic to see her daughter again. While they were occupied, Hermione approached Ron. He didn't notice because he was still searching for Draco, who had unobtrusively departed from the platform while Ron wasn't watching.

"Ron?" Hermione said, towing her trunk behind her. When he dipped his chin to look at her, in their height difference, Ron saw that her head was tilted and her eyebrows were somewhat narrowed. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he said, stooping to kiss her cheek in greeting. Then he hugged her; she was so light. From his observations before she left for school, she was never the same as she was in her past years at Hogwarts. The months spent away brought her so much difficulty, brought them all pain, and Hermione might have taken some of the worst of it.

Ron couldn't help looking at his mother and sister over Hermione's shoulder. The women exchanged a kiss, but this one on the lips, and Ron hated the idea that now Molly's (in cruel addition to Ginny's) mouth was contaminated by the touch of a Death Eater, even a former one.

He wanted to call Ginny out on it all sometime before they Apparated home, but didn't know how to start the conversation, especially now. There was no way to keep it private in the presence of everyone, and she would likely deny much of it, anyway.

When they all did arrive at the Burrow, Harry was alone in the kitchen, trying rather unsuccessfully to arrange a small meal before the others' return. Light smoke plumed from the basin.

"Hi," he said, without smiling much, in a quick but formal tone. "Good to see you again, girls," Harry told Ginny and Hermione, who were standing at the edge of the kitchen with patience and amusement. "The—As you can see, the—I . . ." He stopped before his explanation had even begun, and then grimaced: "Sorry, Mrs. Weasley, I never meant for this."

She had already hurried over and, very quickly, almost within the minute, helped Harry extinguish the small amount of smoke. With a kiss to his cheek and a warm grin, Molly rubbed his back and thanked him. "It was thoughtful of you to try, dear," she said reassuringly.

"George came home while you were gone," Harry informed them all, a little while later. There was a tea towel hung over his shoulder and he was working to remove all of the stains and spills from the worktop. He had denied all of Molly's insistences to help, decisively claiming over and over that it was his fault and therefore it was his responsibility. She had relented upon realising that he wasn't going to.

"Where is he?" Ginny was seated at the kitchen table with Hermione and Ron, sipping on some hastily-made tea.

"I'm not sure," admitted Harry to her. "He said hello on his way in, and then went upstairs. Haven't seen him since then."

George was likely in his bedroom a few storeys up, probably not sleeping, even after a hard day of work without his twin brother, Ron thought privately. Maybe Hermione actually hadn't received the worst that the previous year offered them all.

Once Percy and Arthur reached the Burrow, Molly served dinner. Harry had sheepishly suggested several times over the course of the past hour that they should discard of his less-than-masterpiece and instead start over, but Ron's mother was firm in that it was necessary to eat what Harry had cooked, because it's the thought that counts and it's the polite thing to do and a lot of other reasons that Ron wasn't wholly listening to.

"How's school going for you, 'Mione?" he asked after the meal, which wasn't sitting quite right in Ron's stomach. He remembered the way it had looked on his plate: in one piece, but burned in all the wrong places.

"It's been fine," said Hermione. "Professor McGonagall sometimes asks about you both when we're talking. She's impressed that you're both Aurors and keeps asking when you'll come back to Hogwarts."

It was roughly 7:30 P.M.; the rest of the Weasley family had helped to clean up and then left. Throughout dinner George had been looking grim, but when prompted by Molly he attributed it to a particularly long workday. Now, Ron and his friends were in the sitting room talking around the erected and greatly decorated Christmas tree.

"She's kidding, isn't she?" asked Ron with an involuntary fear welling up within him. He had never been as skilled at school as Hermione or Harry. Even Ginny surpassed Ron in certain subjects, especially Muggle Studies; Ron assumed that Hermione was helping her with that class more than she ever bothered to help Ron.

Hermione gave him a sympathetic but lopsided grin. "I think she was speaking more so along the lines of a mere visit, Ron. She just wants to catch up with her two favourite former students."

Harry beamed for the compliment and with memory for his years at Hogwarts. In the pause, all Ron heard was silence. It seemed that everybody in the house and outside weren't making any noise at all. He looked outdoors through the window, somewhat obscured by the Christmas tree; from what he could view, the grass remained completely covered by the snowfall from a few days earlier, but no snow was falling at the moment.

"What's new with Luna?" Ron asked after a second of looking away. "How's Quidditch?"

"Luna, she's good: still reading books not mandated by the school curriculum, and still occasionally searching for fictional animals around the premises—She's expressed interest in exploring the Forbidden Forest for them, but even if that was allowed the snow would still make it impossible. I suspect she'll try again, come springtime."

Harry smirked. "So, Quidditch?"

The season had just begun two months earlier and couldn't be very far along yet. "Well, I can't say I've been following it extensively," said Hermione. "I believe the first match was between Slytherin and Hufflepuff. At the moment I think that Gryffindor has the most total points accumulated."

"That's good news," Ron said lamely. "What about anything else?"

He knew that Harry was purely interested in Hogwarts and their old friends. But Ron, hardly of his own accord, was determined to learn what he needed to about Ginny's secret relationship with Draco.

"I've told you the bulk of it," Hermione promised him.

"Are you sure?" Ron couldn't really help himself.

Both of them gave offered a strange expression.

"Yes, Ron. Unless you'd like to hear about my slow start in Care of Magical Creatures, or how intensely I'm been studying for my N.E.W.T.s, or—"

"No, I don't care about that," he interrupted, and Hermione gave him the strongest glare she had in a year. Harry's face, too, was questioning.

Somehow Ron had gotten flustered before the bulk of the conversation had even started. "Tell me about Ginny," he snapped.

"Tell you _what_?" Hermione rarely reciprocated anger, but this was one instance.

"Why are you asking about that?" Harry put in, but with a quick sideways glance to him, Hermione continued.

"Never mind, Ron. Ask her yourself."

He scowled. "Fine, let's try again. Tell me about Draco."

Hermione stopped abruptly, like she was trying to remember which face that name belonged to. "Draco?"

"Why is she dating Draco?" Ron demanded in accusation.

"She—"

"I'd like you to tell me as much as you know."

Hermione was stunned silent for a while. Then she was prompted to explain, much more calmly and casually, "They were meeting on weekends, but not at school: mostly in Hogsmeade, restaurants, parks, places like that."

"Since when?"

Harry, from his seat on the sofa, glowered down at Ron, who was knelt on the carpet. "Stop it, Ron."

They made brief, tense eye contact until Ron returned his gaze, slightly more steady, to Hermione.

"Since early October," she said, "or, at least, that's when she told me about it."

"Why?" It was becoming increasingly impossible for Ron to keep himself from wearing the discussion down. "Why's she going out with the git?"

Hermione looked the most grave she had since leaving King's Cross. The way her face contorted into a frown-like shape was half unfamiliar. "I can't tell you."

"Hermione!" Ron was offended that his friend of several years was behaving like this; but, simultaneously, he secretly acknowledged the wrongness of representing himself in the immature way he was.

"No," Hermione said in an instant, as defence, "I actually can't tell you. I'm not certain of the reason."

They paused, and all Ron heard was silence again. It was dark, too; every light on the entire storey was turned off except for one in the kitchen and the fairy lights of the Christmas tree. The shadows caused by these fairy lights aimed straight to Hermione's face, illuminating it in the worst way possible, bringing out every resentful part of her at once.

After Ron had counted the movements of the wall clock in sets of five, Harry gave a long exhale.

"So, Hermione," he asked gently, "is there _anything_ else important from Hogwarts?"

She stopped, looked down, and shook her head. "No.

"I'm exhausted," she added a moment later, crawling to her feet; she, too, had been positioned on the floor like Ron. "Good night."

They bade her the same.

* * *

Harry saw Hermione only in passing, in an upstairs corridor.

"How are you, Hermione?" he asked kindly, but seriously.

She swallowed and breathed out. "I'm well," she said. "I slept heavily enough, I suppose." In a matter of seconds she was looking him in the eyes. "Where are you going?"

In truth, Harry was en route to Ginny's bedroom. He'd been thinking since the previous evening that they needed to talk. If the topic was enough to worry Ron—who had exhibited several examples of carelessness during their years at school—then it was probably worrisome enough that Harry should investigate.

"I was about to take a shower."

It was 8:30 in the morning. Like on a normal day, Molly rose at the same time as the sun and made breakfast right away. Arthur and Percy had just Apparated to the Ministry, and George typically left to open the shop shortly from this time.

"Okay," said Hermione softly. "Did you get any breakfast?"

He did, but it was before she had managed to enter the kitchen. "Yeah."

"Okay," she said again. "Well, I was going downstairs now. Maybe I'll see you a little later."

They parted with restful goodbyes, and Harry waited without looking after Hermione until he heard her footsteps disappear. Then, he kept walking, with one more staircase to go before her and Ginny's shared bedroom. One thing he noticed from spending a lot of time at the Burrow was that winter's colder draughts could be much more easily felt in the higher storeys of the tall house.

In fact, it felt taller than he remembered it being the night before. The stairs over his head, the one or two windows lining each corridor, the way the ceiling curved and caved above to reflect the shape of the roof outside . . . all of it felt too far away. And, to him, so did Ginny and now Ron and Hermione.

When Harry approached the room he thought was Ginny's, but all at once he forgot if it was hers. He wondered if his knocking on the door had been too quiet, and was trying to collect the courage to knock again, until he heard her pacing around her room, and then after a number of seconds she came closer.

Ginny opened the door, and Harry felt as if he had forgotten until now what she looked like.

"Hi," she said, but the end of the short word was softer, lighter.

"Hi."

"Do you need something?"

It was awkward and objectionable to express, but Harry said, before he could convince himself not to, "It's really unnerving that you tried to date Draco, I think." He saw her silence and immediately said, "Sorry."

"How so?" Ginny had ignored his apology; she was frowning. "As in, you think you're betrayed?"

"Maybe."

She sighed and turned halfway around. "Why have you brought this up, Harry?"

The rejection was discouraging. Harry hardly realised how quickly he was shaking his head as he tried to formulate the right answer. "Ginny, I—"

"I thought you were fine with me dating other people," Ginny murmured.

"I am, I . . . It's only—"

He stopped. She wasn't willing to listen to him properly, and now that was clear, from the way she glanced up at him—like she was offended that he would visit her like this.

"You said you were fine with it." Ginny forced her mouth tighter, into an expression that made her appear almost sick. Standing with a stiffness that couldn't have been comfortable, she gazed solemnly at Harry.

He wondered why they had gotten like this. It was a nimble and fleeting time, the memory that he had of them at Hogwarts. She had been a wary but lively fifth year when they shared a public kiss, broadcast to every Gryffindor in the common room, after the most special Quidditch match of the year. Later, when he grew to be seventeen, he considered Ginny's birthday present to him to be one of the best he received. This, today, was a bitterer ending to that.

"You said so," she repeated, and for a moment the shape of her eyes as they rested atop her frown made her look as hurt as Harry.

"I know I did."

"Did you not mean it?" Now her voice sounded to be verging on panic.

The interior of Harry's throat felt uncommonly and unpleasantly dry. He swallowed, but it did no good. "I did mean it," he insisted, and continued on before she had the full chance to interrupt him again. "Ginny, I don't mind that you're dating boys who aren't me." Harry willed himself to look at her, but didn't reciprocate the scowl she was sending him. "I'm just confused as to why you would choose Draco over all other boys."

"Harry," started Ginny. There was only a note of warning in her voice.

"What was it? Did you bond over the fact that you were annoyed at me then, after we broke up? You reminisced about your adventures in the Chamber of Secrets? Something else . . . ?"

"Harry, stop it. You can't go back on what you said then to make it okay now."

Harry couldn't measure how much clarification he would need to give her before she believed him. "I'm fine with it, Ginny—!"

"Then, what?" She snapped, all at once.

"Then, I want you to be honest!" He wasn't quite shouting, but it just barely sounded that way to him in this hollow room.

He knew his visit wasn't welcome anymore a moment before she told him, with a scarily stern sort of quiet, "Get out."

* * *

Ron waited until thirty minutes after he had heard the shower water be turned off to seek out Hermione. He had an inkling of a thought that she wouldn't be in the room she shared with Ginny, since his sister had boarded herself up in there all day today, and was probably only allowing Hermione in to retrieve a change of clothes or the occasional writing utensil. Knowing that, technically, Hermione had been a seventh year these past several months—just like Ginny—Ron couldn't figure out how they managed to share a bedroom in the Gryffindor tower for months on end, only to return to the Burrow and share a bedroom on one of the uppermost storeys for the whole summer.

Traipsing down the stairs, taking them a couple at a time (as he was able to with such long legs), Ron descended into the lower storeys. He checked the kitchen first, only to find it empty of people but full of late-afternoon sunlight, and then gravitated towards the sitting room. Hermione was planted on a sofa cushion, hunched over the table located right in front of her, upon which were strewn a number of sheets of paper facing all directions, some forms, many only half–filled-in.

He was standing in the doorway behind her, trying to choose the most effective words to begin a discussion with her (and really regretting not doing so on the walk downstairs instead), when Hermione glanced a little more than halfway over her shoulder.

Ron thought she looked as though she wanted to say something, but she was more silent than he'd ever known her to be.

Her hair was still damp from the shower. When she moved her head and her hair followed, it revealed the wet blotches on the top of the back of her shirt.

"I'm busy, kind of, Ron," she said in the most direct manner she could muster, like if she was willing to wait for him to speak, she would want so badly to keep up the conversation, and maybe she couldn't let herself go that far. "Do you need something?"

Ron wanted to explain himself, but he was skilled at succumbing to distraction. "What are you doing?"

Her mouth fell straight and Hermione was blinking slightly more often. "They're applications for summertime work," she said. "Work experiences and such."

"Really?" Ron risked a few steps further into the room, but Hermione didn't object, so he took a seat next to her. But not too close. "I thought you would've wanted to apply to some Muggle university."

And she did; or, that's what she told Ron when they were thirteen. Or, maybe the war had changed her mind. Thinking of which—

"Didn't the Ministry offer you a job too?" he asked, and responded to himself when the answer came to his memory. "Yeah, they did. Can't you take that?"

He and Harry had been working at the Ministry for Magic since after they helped with the reconstruction of Hogwarts. Harry was showing up to work a little less often than Ron did, but they were in the same Auror-based department, every so often assigned to the same projects and brief missions.

"I don't know yet," Hermione said to Ron. "I'd have to ask if it's still open to me, which isn't any trouble, really, but I'm not all certain that I want it anymore. I'd rather see every option; I don't want to confine myself to living a political life in the Ministry forever."

"Oh," said Ron, experiencing a small sort of guilt that he had asked. "Sorry."

She might have nodded, but at that moment he had been examining the applications more than he was examining her, so he might have missed it. So soon after the end of school, Hermione was probably the only girl in her class to be getting ahead on schoolwork and real work, during the holiday.

She cleared her throat, a guttural sound that Ron didn't typically hear in her voice, and nimbly stuck a quill over the top of her ear. "Did you want something," she asked, "Ron?"

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I should have been jumping at Ginny instead of at you, last night. You really have no involvement in what she involves herself in, and I think that's not fair, then."

In the full minute that passed before either of them spoke, Hermione looked at the carpet, only to cause her fringe to fall in front of her face from the wrong side of her head. She didn't fix it; Ron only fixed his position on the couch— he was feeling horribly rigid, and it seemed more difficult to breathe, maybe because the hearth's flames were built high, or maybe it was because he was in such close proximity to Hermione's perfume.

"You should talk with her, then," she advised.

At first Ron interpreted it to mean, _I want you to leave me alone and to go pester your sister instead_. Then, until he opened his mouth again, he worked out that it meant something more like, _I think your apology is significant enough to be shared with her too_.

"Are you sure?" he said, and Hermione squinted at him like she couldn't understand his hesitation. "I don't know if she would take it."

"Well," Hermione said, "she'll never be able to take it if you never give it to her."

* * *

It wasn't until after dinner that Ron ventured upwards and into Ginny's room. From years of experience he knew that Ginny was typically more tired after her stomach was full, and maybe she wouldn't have enough energy to yell at him the way she yelled at Harry—which, Ron decided he wouldn't spitefully mention to her, he was able to overhear from the kitchen earlier that day.

"Ginny." She had come out only for food, and then returned to her comfortable solitude right after. Ron tried to hold himself taller, to strengthen himself and to avoid being intimidated by her, but as soon as she whipped open the door with both of her feet placed firmly on the floor, and something like fire residing in her eyes, Ron felt the urge to shrink again.

But, she eased as soon as she exchanged a glance. "Oh," she murmured, still gripping her doorknob like it was her only means of staying grounded, "I thought you were Harry."

Demure as she could make herself appear—which was a trick she had learned at an early age, because it often prevented her from getting blamed for things by her older brothers—Ron knew full well that Ginny was a feisty, intense, extreme being. (The only indication of this was the vivid shade of her hair.) And she was still angry, as part of the aftereffects of this morning, so any wrong word could trigger her irritation to resurface.

"What is it?" she pressed.

"You know what I want you to talk with me about."

"I already talked about it with him," she clarified, "with Harry."

All ends of self-restraint were futile; Ron couldn't prevent himself from launching into the conversation too soon, without using the opening lines that he had been trying to think up throughout supper.

"But Ginny, the Malfoys? You know how they are, and I know they aren't your favourite people, and I don't know why you're exposing yourself and us to Draco—nor does Harry," he added when he thought that her facial expression was changing into something defiant.

"He doesn't even go to Hogwarts any longer," Ron rambled. "I know he stopped attending when I did. "And the fact that you did this to none of our knowledge, not even to Mum's or Dad's . . . well, you don't have to like me, but I'm your favourite brother and you have to remember that."

His attempt at self-centred humour had not gone over the way he intended, as evidenced from the face Ginny was making when Ron chanced a glance.

She started, "I—"

"I will not let you make them our in-laws."

Her arms were crossed so tightly that Ron couldn't see her hands buried in her elbows.

"Are you done?" she asked with a sullen, softened impatience.

Ron took a longer, steadier look at her. For a second, by the way her jaw was poised, and by the abnormally good posture she had, it didn't feel like he had a sister anymore.

"Yeah," he said more gently. "Maybe I am."

"Well, he hasn't been going to school with me," Ginny said, "so we only met in Hogsmeade one or two weekends each month. And it wasn't a total secret—Luna knew, _Hermione_ knew, and now you and Harry know—I mean, we were out in public a lot. He never came back to Hogwarts, he wasn't allowed, so we started seeing each other in restaurants and places like that."

"Why?"

"Why, what?"

Ron almost rolled his eyes, but stopped himself when he knew it would anger Ginny. She was rough and tough, but actually rather sensitive. "You _know_ why, what," he insisted.

"I don't know; he was there, so was I, we began dating."

Ron's look at her was, this time, hard and unending.

"No," he said.

Ginny's eyes were a sign of endangerment. "No?" she echoed.

"No," and Ron couldn't help but start with the accusations he'd promised himself he wouldn't make. "You don't care about Draco at all."

Ginny almost winced. "Ron—"

"You don't," he said, involuntarily taking a step backwards. "You never have. _Ever_, Ginny. You're the least indecisive girl I know and you wouldn't suddenly have a 'change of heart' or a change of mind or a change of whatever-the-hell."

She didn't speak.

"So what was it?" Ron opened off.

"Ronald."

"No, what was it?" he said. "Perhaps you wanted to seek attention?"

"Ron, don't ever say that," whimpered Ginny.

"Fine," he said, "I won't. But . . . maybe you wanted to see what a bad-boy-Slytherin was like?"

Ginny was quiet again, which was probably good: if she hadn't been, she would have been hysterical.

Without warning, Ron got the most thought he'd had all day, the kind of brilliant idea that one fears forgetting. "You wanted to stay close to Harry."

It took Ginny a while to deny it, as though she'd entirely neglected the word "no."

"Yeah," Ron countered.

"Well, they were so closely linked during the war, and especially as sixth years," Ginny dared to explain, even if Ron wouldn't have it. "I thought maybe after that, and after the things you did at his manor, and even during the battle, there was still that kind of connection existing between Draco's family and Harry."

There was pattern within Ginny's tone that Ron had seen before: when distressed, she typically went from resentment to full-on fury to regret, where she was now. "And, I wanted every chance I could get, after Harry broke up with me because of my 'safety' or what other shit he could use for an excuse."

"So you think his word isn't valid?" Ron inferred.

"No!—No." Ginny was flustered. "That isn't it; I trust his word more than anyone's. I tried hard to understand why he was scared for me back then, and I think I almost get it now. But it happened, maybe, half a year ago. And then I missed him, and I wanted to get him to come back to where he was supposed to be. He, and you and Hermione, were all hurting yourselves trying to fight everybody on the other side."

"Ginny, you do realise that Draco is on 'the other side,' and you did take advantage of him." Ron didn't want to listen to his voice say the words, but, "You can't use someone like that, even if it's Draco."

"I was doing it for Harry's sake—!"

"I know you were." Ron couldn't believe how much calmer he was becoming now. "I get it." (He would probably have done the same for Hermione, two years ago.) "But, I think you need to get rid of Draco soon."

"I have," Ginny told him.

Ron let a hundred minutes from the past week run through his head before he found the correct one. "But, a couple of days ago," he began, "you—I saw you and him on the train. Before you got off."

"Yeah," and Ron had no doubts that Ginny knew _exactly_ what he was referring to. "And about a minute after that, I severed him off."

"Does he know you were only having him so you could have Harry?" Ron inquired.

"You're my least favourite brother," she informed him with a ruthless stare.

"Awesome," Ron replied, "but at least I'm the one who knows you best."


End file.
